The Choice - Nicholas Sparks [106]
On the back porch, remembering that moment, he marveled that he could stare out at his happy daughters and experience so much of their joy himself. He barely recognized this sense of well-being, the feeling that all was right in the world. Had the appearance of the pigeon heralded the changes that took hold of their lives? He supposed it was only human to wonder about such things, and Travis figured that he’d be telling the rest of the story as long as he lived.
What happened was this: It was midmorning, six days after the pigeon had reappeared, and Travis was working at the clinic. In one room was a sick cat; in another, a Doberman puppy needing shots. In the third room, Travis was suturing a mutt—half Labrador, half golden retriever—that had received a gash while crawling through barbed wire. He finished the final stitch, tied off the knot, and was about to tell the owner how to keep the gash from getting infected when an assistant entered the room without knocking. Travis turned in surprise at the interruption.
“It’s Elliot Harris,” she said. “He needs to talk to you.”
“Can you take a message?” Travis asked, glancing at the dog and its owner.
“He said it can’t wait. It’s urgent.”
Travis apologized to the client and told the assistant to finish up. He walked to his office and closed the door. On the phone was a flashing light signaling Harris on hold.
Thinking back, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected to hear. He did feel, however, something ominous as he raised the receiver to his ear. It was the first—and the only—time Elliot Harris had ever called him at the office. He steadied himself, then pressed the button.
“Travis Parker speaking,” he said into the phone.
“Dr. Parker, it’s Elliot Harris,” the director said. His voice was calm and unreadable. “I think you should come down to the nursing home as quickly as you can.”
In the short silence that followed, a million thoughts raced through Travis’s mind: that Gabby had stopped breathing, that she’d taken a turn for the worse, that somehow all hope had been lost. In that instant, Travis gripped the phone as if trying to ward off whatever might come next.
“Is Gabby okay?” he finally asked, the words sounding choked.
There was another pause, probably only a second or two. A blink of an eye that was years in the making, is the way he described it now, but the two words that followed made him drop the phone.
He was eerily calm as he left his office. At least, that’s what his assistants would tell him later: that in looking at him, he gave no clues as to what had happened. They said that they’d watched as he drifted past the front desk, oblivious to those who were watching him. Everyone, from the staff to the owners who’d brought their animals to the clinic, knew that Travis’s wife was in the nursing home. Madeline, who was eighteen and worked at the front desk, stared at him with wide eyes as he approached her. By that point, nearly everyone in the office knew that the nursing home had called. In small towns, news is nearly instantaneous.
“Would you call my dad and tell him to come in?” Travis asked. “I have to go to the nursing home.”
“Yes, of course,” Madeline answered. She hesitated. “Are you all right?”
“Do you think you could drive me? I don’t think I should be behind the wheel right now.”
“Sure,” she said, looking frightened. “Just let me make the call first, okay?”
As she punched the number, Travis stood as if paralyzed. The waiting room was silent; even the animals, it seemed, knew something had happened. He heard Madeline speaking to his dad as if from a great distance; in fact, he was only dimly aware of where he was. It was only when Madeline hung up the phone and told him that his father would be right in that Travis seemed to recognize his surroundings. He saw the fear on Madeline’s face. Maybe because she was young and didn’t know better, she asked the